called it – spacious, handy, fast – a soft small panic
flutters in your chest – I wish I had a lift in my building,
you should have said. The wind feels mean today, it
whips your hair into your eyes, your make-up feels tight
and tired and waxy on your face. You look straight down.
You don’t consider jumping, but you do consider what it
might be like to want to jump and that’s enough to make
you nauseous, want to leave. It’s awful here, you think.
You want to be in bed at home, or even in the office at
your desk. Not here. But then the couple poke their
heads out and they tell you that they’re interested and
just like that you’re in control again.
You switch your face from soft to hard.
There’s a lot of interest. We’re suggesting people
put in offers to secure the flat – an extra hundred pounds
a month, say, over the suggested rent should do it.
goodlord goodlord goodlord
and they do. They always do.
We would have stayed another year – at least – at
Girl House, but the letting agents for that place told us
last minute that we had to leave.
Do they – do you, Ava, – mean to cause such panic and
unease?
Is it fun to watch us scramble to find housing?
Those stupid, lazy students with their loans, their pasta-
pesto and their new opinions… is that it?
Or does it just not register as real?
I called to beg the agent, Bronagh – perhaps
you’ve met? – to let us stay a week or two,
just while we find somewhere to live.
She hung up on me, I called right back, another agent
answered.
Bronagh’s in the hospital, she said.
…but we just spoke?
And now she’s in the hospital.
Thoughts and prayers for Bronagh. Grapes and flowers
for Bronagh.
We bid farewell to those sweet days of bunting.
The deposit was withheld, of course,
they said we stole the garden shed –
